In the last decade, automotive companies have considerably invested in innovation concerning many aspects of Automatic Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Due to the increasing attention toward automotive smart systems, a significant effort has been expended in terms of new hardware and software equipment.
For example, modern cars may use back, forward and/or side cameras for different purposes. Some of the most popular applications are: Cross Traffic Alert (CTA), Lane Departure Warning (LDW), Collision Avoidance (CA) and Blind Spot Detection (BSD). The different ADAS solutions may be advantageously used in different road scenarios. For example, CTA may be useful in city road environments where other vehicles can cross the road. Conversely, LDW or BSD may be useful on highways where the car reaches high speeds and a brief distraction of the driver can lead to an accident.
Usually, these systems use one or more sensors for monitoring the car environment. For example, camera based systems may be employed for the surveillance of the vehicle, automatic navigation, traffic sign recognition and/or pedestrians tracking. Radar based systems may be used to measurement the distance between vehicles to avoid collision and far infrared based systems may be able to detect living objects like animals and pedestrians. These sensors are often used in different numbers and combinations to realize various systems.
FIG. 1 shows a possible solution for an overtaking vehicle detection system to be used, for example, in a BSD system.
In the example considered, at least one camera 10 is placed in the vicinity of (for example, on) one or both side view/wing mirrors 20a and 20b of a vehicle 2, such as a car, truck or motorcycle. The camera 10 is arranged to monitor the back and/or lateral road situation with respect to the vehicle 2.
In this context, a common road scenario is the overtaking of the preceding car by the vehicle 2 and, in this case, a brief distraction or a loss of concentration can lead the driver to undertake this action, even if there is an already overtaking vehicle 4, leading to serious accidents.
The images provided by the camera(s) 10 are thus be used to automatically analyze respective areas 100a/100b of the road scenario and consequentially generate a warning signal adapted to warn the driver when another vehicle 4 is overtaking.
For example, as shown in FIG. 2, a typical detection system may comprise a camera (C) 10 generating an image IMG, a processing system (P) 30 and an alert device (A) 12, such as a visual, acoustic and/or haptic actuator. For example, by analyzing the images IMG, the processing system 30 may generate a warning signal WARN used to drive the actuator 12, for example, in order to activate a luminous indication shown via some kind of display means, such as one or more LEDs, being arranged, for example, in the vicinity of the respective mirror 20a/20b. 
In view of the above, there is a need in the art to provide solutions for detecting an overtaking vehicle.